LONDON – Any athletes who thought they got away with doping at the Beijing Olympics shouldn’t rest easy. The drug police are coming back.

The International Olympic Committee said Wednesday that it will retest samples from the games to search for a new blood-boosting drug at the center of the latest Tour de France scandals.

The move reflects the IOC’s aggressive attempts to nab drug cheats not just during an Olympiad, but weeks, months and even years later once new tests become available. Results and medals could be at stake.

“Our message is very clear,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said in a statement. “The IOC will not miss any opportunity to further analyze samples retroactively. We hope that this will work as a strong deterrent and make athletes think twice before cheating.”

The Beijing samples will be reopened and tested in particular for CERA, a new generation of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO. The substance boosts an athlete’s performance by increasing the number of oxygen-rich blood cells.

No test for CERA was available during the Beijing Games. But a new blood test developed by the French Anti-Doping Agency has since detected CERA in samples of Tour de France riders, and the IOC wants to go back and check whether it also was used in Beijing.

“The idea is to retest across the sports, not solely on cycling,” IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said.

“They will retest for all the new substances that are currently detectable, not only CERA.”

IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said the IOC will test blood samples for CERA, but other tests will also be carried out to detect new drugs which he declined to identify.

The IOC freezes and stores samples from the Olympics for eight years, leaving open the possibility to retest them when new detection methods are devised.

The IOC conducted more than 5,000 drug tests during the Beijing Games, including nearly 1,000 blood screenings.